Looking Forward and Also Remembering

This time, keeping to my theme of how two very different things can be adjacent to one another, often challenging us to make sense of their relationship, will be an easy task. If only I didn’t feel so walloped by recent events in my life, I’d have enough energy left over to try to capture it all. But there’s really no need for that; I’ll just let the basics speak for themselves.

In the past six weeks, I’ve experienced three different graduation ceremonies and two memorial gatherings. (There also might have been one West Coast wedding in there, too, but sadly, we couldn’t be present for that happy occasion). In fact, in both of the past weekends, I attended one kind of ceremony followed almost immediately by the other kind.

As my mother might’ve said, this kind of time “makes the head spin.” Not to mention the heart.

Back in mid-May, my husband and I watched, via Zoom, our daughter earn her graduate degree. She was beaming, and so were we. All those classes, societal problems delved into, placements in outside agencies, tuition bills paid, friends made — capped by this moment on stage, when she received a new gold hood (odd name, considering they’re not worn on anyone’s head).

About a month later, I went to the graduation ceremony at the high school where I work. The iffy weather caused this to be held in the gym, so most of the families had to sit up on the bleachers, where the air got stuffy. But still, you could feel the pride permeating the place, as people of all ages came out to cheer on their teenagers.

The principal’s address was a long poem that he composed for the occasion; he urged the graduates to look forward to their futures, beginning this very day, not to dwell on the past, and avoid having any regrets. He wrote it in light, rhyming verse. He didn’t exactly say “the world is your oyster,” but that was part of what I got from his message. You get a clean slate at graduation; you can start afresh to draw your destiny. Much later (he didn’t say this) you’ll enjoy looking back to these days, seeing each other again, reminiscing.

Listening to him speak, I thought about the very different — though not necessarily contrasting — messages we get from ceremonies that mark important moments in our lives. This is obvious, I know, but no less striking when you’re right there experiencing them, one after another.

Less than 24 hours later, one state over, many members of my family and also many friends gathered for a memorial service for my brother. For the past few months, it’s felt to me as if a piece of the earth or sky I always counted upon to be there has disappeared, so it’s an understatement to say that this event on this particular rainy afternoon was significant. You’ll also understand that I can’t bear to say much more, except to emphasize that what we had to share with one another were memories upon memories.

When you lose a beloved person, amidst the disbelief and devastation, you realize that the times you had together must live on, somehow. And you also realize that many other people feel just the same way, a fact that, if not completely healing in itself, at least helps you along in the right direction. It’s not that you don’t go forward, it’s that you go forward in a changed state.

By the time the next weekend arrived, I felt on the one hand emotionally drained and on the other hand wiser to the ways in which life will go on presenting these radically different kinds of occasions.

The beaming-for-a-child feeling returned as we traveled to the D.C. area to watch our son take his place among a group of men and women who had finished the grueling work of three years of medical residency, under the auspices of the Army and the Navy. Meeting his friends and the parents of his friends afterwards was wonderful, too.

And then, the very next day, I hurried back to New England to be present for a long-planned memorial service for my cousin’s wife. Rain, again. One of the most moving aspects of this gathering, to me, was watching how her two sons — both flourishing in mid-life — led the service, standing under a small tent. Memories were like butterflies, coloring the scene. Love was everywhere.

Last evening, I spent some quiet time unpacking my bag and putting away laundry. That was about all I had in me to do. Even without the summer cold that hit yesterday, I’ll need to allow some time for recovery from taking in so much in a compressed time. Earlier this spring, my eldest brother was actually upended by a sudden gushing of water from a fire hose — at what was supposed to be a celebratory community event that, in truth, would have otherwise had little lasting impact. I’m grateful that his broken ribs are less painful now, grateful for him, for my other two brothers, for my cousins and their families, and for all the ways in which our children are taking on new responsibilities in this world.

Amen.